


you do not have to walk on your knees

by goodmorningbeloved



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dubious Ethics, Ghosts, M/M, Manipulation, Parallel Universes, Reincarnation, accidental feelings, non-linear storytelling, these aren't good ghosts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-21 11:16:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9546482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorningbeloved/pseuds/goodmorningbeloved
Summary: There’s a ghost in the doorway, one with pallid skin and dark hair and darker eyes.Rafe, his mind supplies with a startling clarity. He calls out to it.Beside him, Rafe stirs. “Sam?” he answers in a mumble, sleep-foggy and barely awake, and the ghost continues to stare at them, athim, from the door.





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) i'm so excited for this (laughs nervously)  
> 2) title is from mary oliver's "wild geese," which, like the other poem mentioned here, is a gorgeous piece of work  
> 3) there are references to other works of fiction here, but i'm holding off making a full list until the final chapter when i can credit them all at once. but kudos to anyone who gets them already :~)

 

 

_One day you finally knew_  
_what you had to do, and began,_  
_though the voices around you_  
_kept shouting_  
_their bad advice--_  
_though the whole house_  
_began to tremble  
_ _and you felt the old tug  
_ _at your ankles._

 - _The Journey,_ by Mary Oliver

 

* * *

 

There’s a ghost in the doorway, one with pallid skin and dark hair and darker eyes. _Rafe_ , his mind supplies with a startling clarity. He calls out to it.

Beside him, Rafe stirs. “Sam?” he answers in a mumble, sleep-foggy and barely awake, and the ghost continues to stare at them, at _him,_ from the door.

“Nothing,” Sam hears himself mutter back. “It’s nothing, sweetheart, go back to sleep.”

He feels hands grasp at his sides, and for a moment he thinks he’s going to jump out of the bed entirely—but it’s just Rafe, with hands that are warm and alive and simply seeking. Those fingers catch the bend of his elbow, and Sam allows himself to be tugged back down to the pillows. “Not your sweetheart,” Rafe mumbles into his arm, curling into him, and Sam might have reveled in the rare show of affection if not for the dead man standing in his room. “Got work tomorrow,” Rafe slurs, oblivious, “go to sleep.”

_Go to sleep._

He must be seeing things.

_Go to sleep._

He closes his eyes but doesn’t sleep a wink—

 

 

 

“You need a new stove,” Rafe comments over breakfast, assessing it critically over the counter. It is one of those rare mornings where he stays long enough to say more than one word before leaving Sam’s apartment, off in a whirlwind of no-nonsense and business and reminders that _this is nothing permanent._

Sam rolls his eyes and knocks their feet together under the table. Rafe snorts at it, says something about _footsie, Samuel, really?_ and Sam has a snark on the tip of his tongue until his eyes catch sight of someone else standing by the kitchen island, and his mouth runs dry.

_Nothing, it’s nothing,_ he tells himself, but it doesn’t look like nothing— No, it looks like Rafe, in a shirt wrought with ribbon-rips and soaked dark with blood, strands of hair hanging limp over his forehead, dried blood running stripes down his right cheek. 

It isn’t fair that this ghost stands so that Sam can easily see Rafe in front of him, _the real one, real, tangible, I can feel his legs warm next to mine_ , and compare it to this dead-eyed _thing_ standing there, _watching_.

“Hey, ah, Rafe?”

Rafe looks up disinterestedly from his plate.

“What time is it?”

Rafe arches an eyebrow at him, and Sam shrugs as innocuously as he can. Rafe sighs, makes a show of turning around to look at the clock behind him, and says, “Ten until seven.”

He freezes, then—Sam can tell by the littlest of jolts in his shoulders, the way they suddenly tense, and how Rafe’s fingers uncurl over the table. Sam waits with bated breath, staring down the ghost that won’t stop staring at him, until Rafe hisses, “ _I’m going to be late_.”

The metal legs of the chair skid harshly over wood as Rafe stands, already reaching for his phone. Sam instinctively rises after him, puts himself between Rafe and the island out of a sudden, inexplicable _fear_ , and says quietly, “Do you have to go?”

Rafe looks at him with an odd expression, one that Sam knows how to pick apart: part confusion, part surprise, part guilt.

He can _feel_ the coldness behind him, feel it skimming over the skin of his neck. “I mean, I just,” he fumbles, aware of how abrupt it sounds, “I sort of had something planned today, and.”

“Sam.” Rafe’s voice compels him to look. Sam finds his eyes, blue-green and lively, crinkled slightly out of concern. _Don’t you see it_ , Sam wants to ask. For a moment, he thinks Rafe is going to ask if he’s all right. _Please ask. Please, don’t you_ see _it?_ “I thought I told you if we did—this—“ Rafe sighs, lifting a hand to gesture uselessly around them. “—that we _can’t_.”

“I know,” Sam says quickly. “This isn’t me asking for anything more, it’s just that—” He takes a deep breath, then exhales with a small, shaky laugh. No, they’ve been doing this long enough for him to know better, but— “You didn’t even finish breakfast.”

“I’ll eat something at the office,” Rafe says.

“Right.”

“Sam?”

Sam looks at him.

Rafe’s expression is more uncertain now than anything else, and his lips part slightly, as if to say something, only for him to purse them shut. “I have to go now,” he says seconds later, soft but final.

“Okay,” Sam says, feeling defeat in more ways than one. “Yeah, okay.”

He braces himself and steps aside to let Rafe through, only to find the space behind him empty. Rafe pauses after he takes a single step forward, expression troubled, but if he wants to say something he doesn’t say it and simply goes. Sam is left standing alone in his apartment, hands twitching for a cigarette but legs heavy like lead.

“Just a bad dream, Sam,” he whispers to himself. “Bad dream.” Never mind the sunlight, never mind the half-eaten breakfast on the table. He forces himself to move, eyes cast straight ahead, and he convinces himself that he sees no one else as he leaves the apartment.

 

 

Maybe it’s a bad idea after all, whatever he has with Rafe. Maybe this is a bad idea, him pressing the younger man into his cheap, squeaky mattress and trying to kiss him until his vision goes white and he no longer thinks about the frighteningly tight feeling in his chest, one that begs to be called love.

“Sam,” Rafe utters between them, nails dragging lines of dull pain down Sam’s back, “more, damn you, _Sam._ ”

Bright little lights appear behind his eyes when he shuts them too hard, overlapping the vivid images of Rafe with blood on his cheek and lines across his stomach.

“I’ve got you,” Sam murmurs, caging him in with his forearms on either side of Rafe’s head to support himself as he thrusts, slow and deep. He loses himself in the feeling, the minute trembles of Rafe’s thighs and the heels digging into his lower back. “I’m right here,” he breathes against Rafe’s temple. It isn’t quite a response to Rafe’s demands—more a response to the fiercely protective surge that wells up within him. The words are far too gentle and sincere for what they do, but it does something for Rafe, who arches up against him, trembling.

Sam holds him in, holds him down, holds him steady and blind to the eyes, eyes, eyes still watching them from the vanity—

 

 

The apartment feels much more spacious when he’s alone. It’s strange, because it’s never felt that way up until lately.

He toes his shoes off by the front door, then hesitates. To his right, the living room is empty; ahead, he catches a glimpse of the kitchen. He regrets not leaving the lights on—

He checks his phone. He has two unread messages and six missed calls, most of which are from Nate over the past two days, but the guilt doesn’t strike him until he’s finally calling his brother back and Nate is picking up and demanding, “Sam, where the hell have you been?”

“Working,” Sam says, which isn’t a lie. He _has_ been working with Rafe on the blueprints, getting them approved and preparing for construction.

There’s a pause. “You weren’t answering your texts,” Nathan says. “I thought you’d died or something.” He chuckles, but the undertone of worry is there.

With his brother’s voice, it’s easier to breathe and to move; he leaves his bag by the door and makes his way into the living room, stepping around the small coffee table and the burgundy couch. “Not so easily, little brother,” Sam responds naturally, and he’s said it enough times that even he doesn’t notice the hesitance this time. “I’ve just been really busy, between work, and, uh…”

“Rafe?”

“Well.” He can imagine the disapproving frown on Nathan’s face, but he’s a grown adult and knows what he’s gotten himself into. “Him too. But I’ve been looking into other independent work too, and I guess I’ve been so preoccupied that I haven’t really had the time to talk.”

_Except to walls. I’ve been talking to walls, Nathan, help me._

“Sounds real healthy,” his brother comments. “Listen, if R— Ah, sorry, hold on.”

There’s rustling on the line as Nate presumably covers up the speaker with a hand. Sam tries to be patient as he moves from the living room to the kitchen, but he knows what Nathan is going to say and goes on anyway, “It’s _not_ Rafe, Nathan. I just haven’t been getting enough sl—“

His brother’s voice returns, clearer. “Sorry, I’m just getting out of the office. Where was I—“

“Nathan,” Sam interrupts. “You remember the stories Mom used to tell us?”

There is a pause, in which he hears the distant sounds of traffic from Nate’s end. “Which ones?”

“Remember that one, about the pirate? The one who she said she believed didn’t really die?”

“Yeah. Sir Francis Drake, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

This is beginning to feel like a bad idea too, and Sam pauses by the counter, drumming his fingers as he watches the closed door of the bedroom. “Well, I was thinking, not dead doesn’t necessarily equal _alive_ , you know? Like, ghosts.”

“I think you have to be dead to become a ghost, don’t you?”

“I mean, you _die_ , but you’re not really _dead_ if some part of you lives on.”

“So you think Mom meant that Francis Drake is actually a ghost?”

Sam wilts in disappointment, even though he knows it’s his fault for being cryptic. “Yeah,” he relents. “I was just, you know. Thinking about it.”

There’s another pause, this one longer, like Nate’s trying to figure out what else he could mean. Sam irrationally wants him to connect the dots, to somehow figure out that Sam is afraid of going into his bedroom because there might be a ghost waiting for him.

“Sam,” Nate says, “are you okay?”

“Just swell,” Sam says.

“Do you want to go visit Mom? I can call her, cancel some plans, and I’ll pick you up and we can—“

“No!” He realizes too late that he sounds like he’s backtracking. “Don’t cancel anything.”

“Elena will understand, I r—“

“Jesus, Nathan, definitely do _not_ cancel a date for me.” A laugh tears its way out of his mouth, surprisingly genuine. It loosens something in his chest — it feels good to laugh, after the past few days. “I’m really okay. It was something that sounded a lot better in my head.”

Nate doesn’t sound completely convinced. “Uh huh.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Sam grips the phone a little tighter, about to end the call right there, when Nate says, “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

It makes him smile. “I know.”

“Okay.”

“Nathan?”

“Yeah?”

“Hang up and go drive home to Elena.”

“Unbelievable,” he hears his brother mutter. “Text me later, you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

When Nate does hang up, Sam contemplates calling their mother after all— But she must be working and he isn’t six years old anymore, wide-eyed and frightened and asking her to check under his bed for monsters. He places his phone on the counter and turns to the bedroom. The apartment would be silent if not for the half-opened kitchen window, letting in the sounds of street life below— _Did I open that window?_

The bedroom turns out to be empty. He walks back out, shuts the window, and sits on the couch with his head in his hands. 

_Bad dream. It’s a bad dream._

 

 

“Something’s wrong,” Rafe states, looking up at him. He’s got Sam pinned against the wall — his penthouse, this time — and Sam can’t really escape the scrutiny of his gaze. “You taste more like an ashtray than usual.”

So Sam smoked half a pack before coming over, big deal. “Sorry?” he offers.

He expects Rafe to move away, but instead finds his face being cupped by two warm palms. He feels Rafe’s thumbs brush the skin under his eyes, surprisingly careful. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”

Oh, he’s been sleeping enough—just not in his own bed, and it hasn’t really felt like _sleeping_ , either, more like closing his eyes and then simply opening them again without a trace of rest. He looks back at Rafe levelly, knowing that if he wavers, Rafe will catch him in the lie. “Been working to meet the deadline, is all.”

Rafe flinches like it was the wrong thing to say. Before Sam can amend it, Rafe withdraws his hands and takes a step back. “If you need an extension, just say so. I’ll tell my father to push it back.”

It reminds him of what they’re supposed to be. 

“God knows he has plenty of other buildings to keep him occupied,” Rafe mutters, moving away completely. Sam quashes the urge to reach out and bring him back close, instead letting him walk over to the minibar and pour a drink. His hair’s mussed, top two buttons undone and exposing the bruise Sam left on his collarbone—a sight that should make Sam want to press him against the counter and suck more bruises into his skin, but instead an odd feeling curls in his stomach.

Rafe is wearing black today, a dark dress shirt tucked into slacks, completed by glossy dress shoes. It reminds Sam of the other one, the thing with Rafe’s face that wore a black shirt too, that one with red shining through the cuts in his middle, looking otherwise exactly like Rafe and making Sam wonder, _what if it’s a sign, what if it’s a premonition, I don’t ever want you to get hurt._

“Sam,” Rafe says. He has an arm outstretched, proffering the same glass he drank from. Sam notices the shadows under his eyes too and remembers that Rafe has a tendency to throw himself with near obsession, and he has to bite back a laugh. What a pair they make.

Sam accepts the glass, which frees Rafe’s hands to start unbuttoning his shirt—then Sam’s, and Sam has to swallow hard because he’s just realizing that he cares, and it’s too late to do anything about it because he didn’t realize sooner and now he cares too much to _not_. 

“Come back from wherever you are,” Rafe murmurs, kissing along his jaw. There’s impatience there, but curiously, Sam thinks he hears something gentle too. “Come back to me.”

There are no ghosts here. 

 

 

“What do you want?” he asks the non-being standing in front of his bookcase. He watches its pale arm hover over one of the picture frames, before it slowly turns to face him.

“What d’you want?” Sam repeats, more solidly. Maybe he’s emboldened by all the beer he’s been drinking in the past two hours, or maybe the beer lets him be openly annoyed at the fact that his apartment hasn’t felt like _his_ apartment for over a week.

Sam takes a step forward, only to groan when the ground tilts under his feet. He has to stop by the back of the couch and steady himself.

The ghost — _what else can it be?_ — seems to _frown_ at him. “Do you love him,” it asks. It even _sounds_ like Rafe.

Sam laughs a little at the question — what an odd thing to ask. He was expecting a loud, bellowing voice, like the voice of King Hamlet demanding vengeance in a forest—that’s an even funnier image, makes him laugh again.

The ghost says nothing else. It has turned away to look at something else on the shelf again, and Sam thinks of the pictures of him and Nathan and their mother he has propped up there. “Yeah, I love ‘im,” he slurs. It’s an easy question to answer, at least. “Nate’s my fam’ly.” 

For a moment, there is an absolute silence, and Sam can feel himself breathing but not hear it. Then—a shift. Sound returns narrowly, almost painfully, the lights blow out all at once, and the air turns frigid. Sam startles when the television suddenly comes to life behind him, and a voice, fervent, rings out, _DO IT SWIFTLY IF YOU MUST BUT DO IT FOR DO NOT DOUBT THAT YOU ARE A KILLER—_

Another shift, and the voice drops out, the lights flicker on weakly, and the ghost is gone. 

Sam is dimly aware of his heart, beating fast and scared in his ribcage. He feels his legs buckle and manages to grip the couch in time. He exhales as he lowers himself, hands trembling, and not from the cold still lingering thinly in the room.

He passes out—he’ll attribute it to the alcohol when he wakes up. If he remembers anything of the incident, he’ll attribute it to the alcohol too.

 

 

“Samuel,” Rafe answers evenly when he picks up. 

Sam can tell that something is off. Rafe doesn’t call him _Samuel_ , and he doesn’t let the phone ring more than three times before answering it. “Hey,” Sam says thickly.

Rafe says nothing else, and Sam knows it’s up to him to fill the week-long radio silence he’s given Rafe, but for the life of him, he can’t think of anything to say.

“Well,” Rafe says icily. “Next time you want to just _say hi_ , send it in with one of the blueprints. Don’t waste my time.”

“Wait,” Sam says as the line goes dead. Cursing under his breath, he struggles to call Rafe again. He takes a drag of his cigarette as the ringing begins, but this time he doesn’t have to wait long at all.

“ _What_ ,” Rafe snarls at the same time Sam pleads, “Don’t hang up.”

“Say one more useless thing and I will.”

“I’ve been seeing ghosts,” Sam blurts.

When the other line goes silent, he takes it as a cue to keep going, “Well, really, just one. _A_ ghost. And it looks like you, except pale and covered in blood, and it’s— it’s fucking me up, Rafe.”

“Samuel,” Rafe says.

“It moves around my apartment but it’s in my bedroom the most, _Christ_ — I’ve tried sleeping on the couch for the past week, but I still _see_ it, sometimes in the mirror or sometimes right in front of me, and I swear it gets closer every time, and it terrifies me, and— Shit.” His cigarette falls from his shaky fingers and rolls onto concrete, unsalvageable. “I’m sorry I haven’t called back. I’m way behind on my part, but I swear I’m doing my—“

“ _Sam._ ”

His fingers twitch.

“Come over.”

With two words, Rafe stops his hands from shaking. _There are no ghosts there._

“Okay.” Sam looks up at Rafe’s building, right across the bench he’s been occupying for the past half hour. “Funny story, I’m actually—“

“Right outside?” Rafe ventures. “Sam, I know. The security desk called me because they recognized you pacing back and forth in the lobby for, I quote, a solid hour.”

Sam wants to laugh.

“Just come up.” Rafe’s voice seems to soften. “But if you’re smoking, you’re staying by the window.”

 

 

Rafe is wearing a loose white shirt and dark cotton pants when he arrives, brown hair soft from just being washed and falling untamed over his ears. A pair of thick glasses sit low over the bridge of his nose, and when Sam first sees him, he almost reaches out to adjust them for him.

He doesn’t, though. He doesn’t know where Rafe stands, where _they_ stand. He remembers what Rafe said to him before he first kissed him ( _just stress relief_ ) and wonders why and how they’ve come this point instead. He didn’t know Rafe had reading glasses. He didn’t know he would find this information valuable.

“You want to elaborate on what you were saying?” Rafe asks. There’s no judgment, mockery, or even anger in his tone, and Sam’s not sure what to do with that. It sounds like Rafe genuinely wants to know, and it’s unfamiliar. Not completely so, but enough to make him falter for a few seconds. He looks out of the window, at the city sprawled beneath them. He’d intended to light another cigarette, but it remains unlit in his hand.

“I think I’ve been seeing things,” he says. He chooses his words carefully, remembering how disastrously this conversation had gone with Nathan. “I don’t know why, before you ask. It just…started happening, and I don’t know how to make it stop.”

“You said you saw something that looked like me.”

“Yeah. I think it _is_ you, but it can’t be. It has cuts, here,” he draws an invisible line over the left side of his stomach, “and on its arms, and it has blood, here.” Unthinkingly, he touches the side of Rafe’s face.

Rafe seems to fluster, turning his head to break the contact first. “All right. So you’re seeing things. But why me?”

“I don’t know,” Sam says honestly, helplessly. 

Rafe’s gaze hardens, and Sam turns too, wondering what he’s looking at. They’re alone in the penthouse—for once. Around them, Rafe’s life lies in organized sections: The desk that houses stacks of paperwork for the Adler business, the shelves lined with Nietzsche and Mary Oliver and others touching spines, the fruits sitting out on the breakfast counter, the neat shoe rack by the door, the five clocks placed around this room alone, the tall, uncurtained windows that allow Rafe to look out at the city knowing that no one can really see him.

“Rafe?”

“You called it a ghost,” Rafe says softly. Sam can’t tell if he believes him or not.

“I’ve seen it go through walls, and it appears and disappears whenever it wants.” He gives the tiniest of shrugs. He knows how ridiculous it sounds, but it’s all he can say.

It’s surprising, then, when Rafe simply nods. “I have a meeting out of town. It will take three, four days, maybe, and I’ve already booked a hotel.”

Sam furrows his brow. “What does that—”

“Come with me.”

As soon as the words are out, Sam freezes, and even Rafe looks briefly lost at what he’s just said.

“I mean,” Rafe says hastily, pink blooming over his cheeks. “You won’t have to do anything there. You can bring your laptop and do work from the room, or you don’t have to bring anything at all. You can do whatever you want.” He shrugs as if it’s nothing, as if this isn’t violating whatever silent agreement they had come upon the first time they slept together, as if he doesn’t know that Sam’s already got an answer. “You just sound like you need a break, and one will hardly kill you.”

“Yes?” Sam says.

Rafe stares at him, nonplussed, but one corner of his mouth twitches upwards. “ _Yes_?”

“Yes,” Sam says, more certainly. “If. If that’s okay with you.”

Rafe scoffs, brushing past him. “If it wasn’t okay, I wouldn’t have asked,” he throws over his shoulder, but he sounds pleased now too.

It’s not how Sam imagined the conversation going, though he’ll admit that he didn’t know _why_ he sought out Rafe in the first place, why he thought coming here would make anything better. Maybe Rafe knows him better than he thought, because the thought of being away, somewhere else, _with no ghosts, no bloody faces,_ sends relief flooding through his system. He begins to tuck away the unlit cigarette.

Or maybe— “Rafe?”

Rafe hums in acknowledgement, busy rummaging through the refrigerator.

“Have you ever seen it?”

He keeps thinking about that first and only morning Rafe spent at his apartment, how Rafe had turned and should have _seen_ it there in front of him.

“No,” Rafe says after a pause. He sounds like he wants to say something else, but he doesn’t, and Sam doesn’t want to push. Rafe reappears with a bowl of something — _popcorn_ , Sam notes with a prickle of amusement — and hands it to him. “Go sit down. Watch a movie or something.”

“Well, you don’t have to make me sound like a chore.”

Rafe makes a little noise. “You aren’t fucking me at the moment, so yes, it’s a little tedious.” When Sam blinks at him, he sighs and says, “That was a _joke_. You can watch whatever you want and help yourself to the kitchen. I just have papers to finish.”

“Great sense of humor you have there,” Sam comments, walking over to the couch.

“Sorry,” Rafe says from his desk. It sounds almost too flat to be apologetic, but he’s worked with Rafe long and closely enough to know there’s a degree of sincerity there.

Sam simply leans back on the couch and eats from the bowl, and he and Rafe simply coexist for a few minutes of silence—until Rafe appears at the foot of the couch eventually. “Finished already?” Sam asks of him, and Rafe shakes his head and busily climbs into his lap, disregarding the bowl of popcorn he’s still holding.

Sam knows what he wants and puts the bowl aside—or at least he _thinks_ he knows, because Rafe says, “What are you doing?” and grabs the bowl again. “Watching you fidget was giving me a bigger headache than the paperwork,” he declares, moving off of Sam’s legs. He doesn’t move very far back, though, and nudges Sam’s knees. Sam scoots over to give him room, and Rafe sighs and settles in close, pressed warm against his side.

It’s comfortable. It’s weird and new, but it’s comfortable, and Sam doesn’t realize he’s staring down at Rafe until Rafe is looking back up at him. “You’ve seen me naked, Sam, don’t tell me _this_ is shocking,” Rafe mutters, shoving popcorn rather ungracefully into his mouth as he reaches for the remote.

Sam _laughs_.

Rafe elbows him.

“Not laughing at you,” Sam gets out. “Promise.” It’s true. He’s laughing at the fact that after scouring the Internet for answers, trying homemade rituals, and even _visiting a medium_ , it’s simply sitting on a couch with Rafe that most effectively calms him. “I thought you didn’t want to do this.”

“Well,” Rafe flicks on the television, and the sound of automated audience laughter almost drowns out his next words, “contrary to my bad sense of humor, I _do_ like spending normal time with you.”

“All the other times aren’t normal?” Sam jibes. 

“It’s rude to talk during a movie.”

The evening goes on. There are no ghosts here—just him and Rafe, who falls asleep eventually, and Sam has to gingerly pluck the glasses from his face so they don’t leave red marks over his nose.

When that happens and he’s the only one awake, he feels, briefly, like they’re being watched. It’s a familiar feeling—he looks around, feeling brief panic—but the open-floor space is empty save for them.

He looks past the television, to the tall windows taking up one side of the wall. _That must be it_ , he tells himself. _I’ll tell Rafe he needs to invest in some curtains._

There’s something comforting in the thought—that Rafe will be there to tell it to. Rafe will be there, alive and well, and Sam will be there with him.

_There are no ghosts here._

 

 

It wasn’t a good idea to decide to clean up at the last minute, but Sam had figured he should at least wipe things down before leaving so that there won’t be so much dust when he comes back. The place discomforts him, but it’s still _his_ , and it’s responsible for memories of him and his brother when they used to live together. 

He’s running the duster over the bookshelf when something flutters to the floor. He picks it up, then smiles a bit when he realizes it’s Rafe’s business card, the one Rafe had given him with his personal cell phone number on the back. 

When he goes to place it back on the shelf by some old pictures of him and Nathan, he feels chills skim down his spine. He looks around instinctively; he’s alone.

_Not for long_ , he tells himself. Nathan had his doubts when Sam called him that morning to let him know he was going out of town, but Sam trusts Rafe, and he really thinks, _feels_ , that a few days away will help.

His phone buzzes, and it’s a message from Rafe telling him he’s waiting outside with the car. Not wanting to keep him waiting, Sam leaves the duster on the shelf, picks up his bag, and leaves the apartment. He locks it behind him, and then he pauses, as if expecting someone to protest from the other side—but nothing happens.

Rafe is at the end of a conversation when Sam comes down to meet him. “I told you that you _cannot come_ ,” Sam hears as he walks through the doors, and he raises an eyebrow.

Rafe has his phone in his hand, so he assumes he was on a phone call.

“Everything all right?” he asks anyway.

“It will be soon,” Rafe says. He surprises Sam by smiling, even though he turns away like he’s trying to hide it, and it smooths frustration out of his face and makes him look radiant. It suits him, Sam thinks to himself. “Ready to go?”

Sam’s smiling too, feeling lighter and freer than he has in days. “Definitely.”

 

 

The driver gets paid enough that he doesn’t ask questions, just drives wherever Adler wants him to and collects a paycheck every two weeks. It doesn’t stop him from asking _silent_ questions, though, especially when the heir climbs into the back of the car with two other men.

“We’re ready when you are,” Adler intones, though the driver sees his hand intertwined with the man sitting to his right.

The driver wonders when Adler might have made good-enough friends with _twins_ to the point where he would want to take them both along someplace, but it’s not his job to ask questions, so he  pulls off the parking brake and begins wordlessly maneuvering the car onto the road.


	2. ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much of it resembles the first time: The fog, the emptiness, the dark shape. There are other details now, though—an occasional glint of light, like _gold_ , the faint creaking of something heavy swinging on rope—but the dream adheres to whatever script it has been doomed to repeat.
> 
>  _Help me,_ the voice begs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) my specialty is inconsistent chapter lengths lmao. i blame the amount of exposition i didn't realize i'd have to do on rafe's part. oops  
> 2) heed the updated tags, please!! when i first imagined this story, i didn't realize how dark it would actually come across in writing.  
> 3) this might extend to 4 chapters instead of 3?? we'll see how long the next part wants to be  
> 4) thank you all for the feedback, it honestly makes me so happy that i could cry /blubbers

 

_"Mend my life!"_  
_each voice cried._  
_But you didn't stop._  
_You knew what you had to do,_  
_though the wind pried_  
_with its stiff fingers_  
_at the very foundations,  
_ _though their melancholy  
_ _was terrible._

 - _The Journey_ , by Mary Oliver

* * *

 

It first comes to Rafe in a dream, as most unusual things do, amidst curling smoke and glittering cinders. He is somewhere he doesn’t recognize because there is nothing _to_ recognize, surrounded by a cloud of fog so thick and heavy that he can’t see more than a dark mass on the ground. He can’t move, can’t speak, but he can smell something burning—it’s warm here, almost suffocatingly so, even though the space stretches out endlessly around him with no ceilings or walls in sight. 

The mass looks like a person, he thinks. It has the vague shape of one, though its constantly shifting outline makes it hard to tell.

He can’t take his eyes off of it. He moves towards the mass—or he _thinks_ he moves. He can’t really tell, because the shape stays a fixed distance away from him, and his legs don’t feel like they’re taking a step.

And then, a voice—

_Is that still you?_

He doesn’t recognize it; here, he doesn’t wonder.

_Is that you?_ the voice asks again.

_Yes_ , a second voice answers.

_Help me._ Weak and rough—it’s desperate. The shape trembles.

_Why should I do that?_

_I don’t know. I don’t know. But if not me, then— Help_ him. _Please, he’s dying._

Who? he wants to ask. Instead, the second voice answers, cold and detached, _You should have thought about that before turning on me._ It sounds close, but he can’t see anybody else in front of him, and he can’t turn his head past his shoulder to check behind him.

_Help me_.

I can’t, he thinks, staring down at the person, frustrated by his inability to do _anything_. 

This is how the rest of the dream goes: The first voice pleading for help and the second voice telling it, over and over, _No, no, no,_ until morning comes and he is finally freed from its hell. He wakes up alone in his penthouse, trembling, covers kicked to the floor, heart pounding.

He spends too much time in the shower, standing shivering under a too-cold spray of water as he tries to clear his mind. He’s almost late to his meeting with the company’s hired architect, but if punctuality is the price he pays to be able to shake Samuel Morgan’s hand without trembling—well, it’s another thing he can afford. 

When he locks eyes with Sam for the first time, a voice whispers over his shoulder, _Do you remember him?_

 

 

The voice plagues him for days, constantly asking _do you remember do you remember do you remember,_ and Rafe falls behind construction plans and has to listen to one of his father’s lectures for the first time in years because he can’t get any sleep or any damn _peace_. Even when the voice doesn’t make itself known, there is suddenly always the weight of nausea in his gut, a feeling equivalent to reaching up to find a noose tied around his neck, and it nearly drives him mad because he doesn’t know why he feels it. He concludes that it has something to do with Samuel Morgan, but his attempts to fire him are overridden by his father, who insists the there is no one else more competent for the job.

Yet, oddly, paradoxically, while it was Sam’s presence that brought on the voice, it’s also his presence that quiets it. 

Maybe that’s why Rafe gradually begins to seek him out.

It helps that Sam makes it easy by becoming a near-constant presence around the office. He brings Rafe coffee every day for the first week they work together, he never drops off paperwork unless he can give it to Rafe himself, and he meets every piece of brutally honest feedback that Rafe has to offer with an easy grin and a promise to do better. 

Becoming _anything_ with Sam—it isn’t intentional. Rafe becomes used to him without really _thinking_ about it. He becomes used to some details, like how Sam always smells faintly of ashes and never irons his dress shirts and carelessly rolls his sleeves up to his elbows when he sits down to draft anything.

It’s well after-hours when Sam, the last of the floor to leave, drops by his office to say good night and Rafe kisses him for the first time. He is nothing gentle, probably gripping Sam too tightly by the front of his shirt and pressing him uncomfortably against the desk, but somehow Sam pushes back in all the right ways: placing equally tight hands over Rafe’s hips, using his height to force Rafe to lean back slightly as he kisses back with teeth.

It frightens Rafe, this first time, because there’s a fleeting, fleeting sense of familiarity in the kiss, a faraway _haven’t we done this before_ that nags at the back of his mind. He almost bolts if not for Sam, who eases him a step back so he can reverse their position and crowd Rafe against the desk instead until they’re half on top of it and there’s nowhere else to go.

_Is this what you want_ , Sam asks along his jaw, and Rafe reaches for his waistband and tells him _yes_ and _get this damn belt off._

In the frighteningly lucid aftermath, Rafe lets him stay long enough to redress, and then promptly tells him to leave.

“What, you won’t even call a cab for me?” Sam teases, unaffected as he always seemed to be, and Rafe idly tells him that he can take the car waiting outside. Sam raises an eyebrow here. “You’d trust me to drive it?”

“One of my drivers is waiting downstairs,” Rafe scoffs. He’s surprised by the lack of venom in his tone. His mind feels clear, the clearest it’s been all week. “He’ll take you to…wherever you live.”

He snatches a fallen business card from the floor and scrawls a number onto the back. 

“The complex by that park they’re renovating,” Sam answers needlessly as he buttons his shirt back into place. It’s wrinkled, but Rafe doesn’t feel particularly apologetic because it was wrinkled before and he doesn’t think Sam even irons his shirts. “I usually walk. You know the place?”

“No, and I didn’t need to,” Rafe says, handing him the card. “Show him that. If he gives you any trouble, call me.”

“What about you?”

“What _about_ me?”

Sam looks at him, curious. “Not going home yet?” It sounds too bizarre and normal of a conversation to be having while he can still feel the ghost of Sam’s grip on his thighs.

“I,” he says pointedly, “was doing things before you came in. And now, I also have a desk to clean.”

“So next time, we don’t use your desk,” Sam says easily.

“How presumptuous of you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Sam doesn’t sound sorry at all as he waves Rafe off and turns to the door.

“Samuel,” Rafe says, stopping him. The name tastes too formal but he forces it out. “This isn’t happening again.”

And Sam shrugs, noncommittal, already trading in the card for the pack of cigarettes that Rafe learned he keeps in his back pocket. “Sure,” he says, and then he’s leaving through the door.

The voice has nothing to say about this.

 

 

When it, inevitably, happens again—the voice has nothing to say about that, either.

 

 

This is another dream: He is sitting at the mouth of a cave, caught between the shadowed formations of rock on one side and soft grass and a bright blue sky on the other. Water laps at his feet; there are pieces of driftwood floating around his ankles, sometimes scratching his skin, and he wonders what’s been broken and why.

There are three figures standing in the side of vibrant green and blues. They are silent and faceless, but he can _tell_ that they are turning away from him, and somehow this silence is worse than the voices of the other dream.

“Wait,” he says. He feels his mouth form the words, but no sound comes out. “Wait. Wait!”

Dread rises quickly in his stomach. Desperate, he tries to lift a foot, only to find the water has gone cold and thick and won’t let go of him.

“Wait, please.”

Lonely, why does he feel so _lonely_ —

 

 

This is another dream: He’s sprawled on a bed so soft that he imagines it’s what clouds might feel like. There’s someone lying next to him, sleeping soundly on their side so all he can distinguish are tufts of dark hair and a small triangle inked into the skin between their shoulder blades.

He wakes from it feeling peaceful, quiet. This is one dream he welcomes.

 

 

Sam likes to smoke after sex. It bothers Rafe beyond the obvious health concerns; it reminds him of that burning place from his dreams, of the rough voice pleading for help.

“So, we gonna talk about this?” Sam asks, taking the cigarette from his lips so he can speak properly.

They’re in Sam’s apartment. It’s the first time they’ve ever been anywhere together outside of work. “No,” Rafe says, closing his eyes and trying to relax against the sheets for a moment before he has to go.

“Not even when you’re about to fall asleep in my bed?”

He opens his eyes and sits up. “Thank you for reminding me.”

“Wait, no, no.” Sam laughs, reaches for him. “That wasn’t me telling you to leave.”

“It’s about time I do anyway.” Rafe shrugs off his attempts to pull him back down, and since Sam is also trying not to drop his cigarette, it’s easy to free himself and move off the bed.

“Oh, c’mon, Rafe.” Sam’s laughter dies out and turns into a sigh when Rafe begins hunting for his clothes. Sam slumps back against the pillows in defeat, eliciting a small _creak_ from the mattress, and takes a heavy drag from his cigarette. “One night won’t kill ya’.”

“No, but the secondhand smoke might,” Rafe replies, irritated, as he snatches his pants from the floor and begins to dress. It’s a bit of a challenge, given how weak his legs feel and the weight of Sam’s open stare, but it only makes him more determined to do it himself.

“Ouch. I’ll put it out if you really want.”

“I appreciate the thought, but no thank you.”

“So we just keep doing this and never call it anything, is that it?”

“It’s stress relief,” Rafe finally tells him. _Convenient_ would have been a better word for it; Rafe gets a reprieve from the voice and the dreams, and Sam gets whatever thrill he’s looking for from fucking the heir of the company he works for.

“Mm. ‘course.” Sam’s expression is unreadable, though Rafe is careful not to look at him for too long. “Good to know.” If Sam opposes it, he doesn’t say anything other than a, “Hey, lock the door when you leave.”

He leaves, dreading the consequences.

 

 

He doesn’t take his sleeping aid that night, for once looking _forward_ to his insomnia, but it doesn’t stop him from falling asleep anyway, and it doesn’t matter that it’s only for a few hours; he dreams the first dream, as he feared he would.

Much of it resembles the first time: The fog, the emptiness, the dark shape. There are other details now, though—an occasional glint of light, like _gold_ , the faint creaking of something heavy swinging on rope—but the dream adheres to whatever script it has been doomed to repeat.

_Help me_ , the voice begs. He can’t tell if it’s the same one that speaks to him when he’s awake; in here, everything sounds distorted, like a conversation taking place on the other side of a thick glass wall.

_Why should I do that?_

_If not me, then help_ him _, please, he’s dying._

_No._

_Please, please, you can have me, you’ve_ got _me, just help him._

_Why should I, when I have you right where I want you?_

_Help him_ , the voice insists. A cough wracks through its words, and Rafe swears he can hear it struggling to draw breath. 

There is something cold snaking around his ankle. 

_Please help him._

_No._

_Rafe._

_No._

_Rafe._

_No._

_RAFE—_

 

 

“Rafe,” Sam groans against the column of his throat.

Rafe’s not sure how many times he has willingly returned to Sam’s bed—the fourth? The fifth?—only that the dream has returned in full force, that the voice won’t go away, but also that Sam is a real, solid presence on top of him, around him, anchoring him.

If Rafe holds onto him tighter than usual, he can blame it on the pleasure rapidly culminating in his lower belly. If he trembles, if there’s something stinging in his eyes—it’s because he’s finally figured out what that heavy weight in his gut finally feels like. It’s _guilt_.

A choked sob wrenches its way free of his throat at the same time he hits his climax, and that at least is easy to muffle against Sam’s neck. Sam bears him down against the mattress, unrelenting, driving in deeper still and groaning as he comes too.

Rafe doesn’t realize he’s shaking until Sam’s combing a hand through his hair, insufferably _gentle_ , and asking quietly, “Are you okay?”

He nods, but he can’t look Sam in the eye so he pulls him down for a kiss instead.

“Hey,” Sam says, gaze flickering to the side for a moment. Rafe assumes he’s looking at the clock on his bedside table—it reads quarter past midnight. “Maybe you should stay the night.” He looks _worried,_ and Rafe is tired, tired of running.

Staying the night is unintentional, as are many of the things that they do.

In the morning he doesn’t regret it—as with many of the things that they do.

 

 

The first dream begins to revisits him every night afterwards, as if making up for all of the other nights it missed. Sometimes it starts falsely as one of the others—one moment he is cocooned by silk sheets or he is standing in water, but it always eventually dissolves to gray and smoke. The dream persists even for the nights that Rafe spends sleeping at Sam’s apartment, and he’s not sure what scares him the most: The dreams, the concept of Sam finding out about that he might be _crazy_ , or the amount of times he has willingly _stayed_ at Sam’s apartment. 

He _does_ know that he’s sick of being afraid—and he tells himself this is why he keeps staying. He can’t stop the dreams, but he can at least choose so that he does not wake up alone. Somehow, having company—or maybe just having _Sam_ —makes it all a little more bearable, and having that semblance of control keeps him from losing his mind entirely.

The voice returns too, and it settles itself into his life until Rafe can’t remember a time when his thoughts were quiet. It at least stops commanding Rafe to remember things he has no memory of, but the things it says instead are more baffling.

_He likes to read. He likes history best,_ it says when Rafe idles too long in a bookstore for a birthday present.

_He likes it with milk, not cream,_ it whispers when Rafe decides to prepare an overdue cup of coffee.

_He loved you_ , it confides during one of the mornings Rafe stays long enough to let Sam make them breakfast.

_Loved?_ Rafe thinks, feeling dizzy.

The voice doesn’t answer.

“What are you thinking so hard about?” Sam’s voice. It’s become so familiar lately.

“You need a new stove,” Rafe tells him. He feels the weight of Sam’s gaze on him, but he keeps his own eyes on the plate in front of him. He thinks he might throw up.

When Sam reminds him of the time, he snatches the opportunity to leave. “You didn’t even finish breakfast,” Sam says, because he’s _good_ like that, fucking _perfect,_ and—

_He loved me?_

“I have to go now,” he tells Sam, hating how weak he sounds. It would be easier to leave without a word, but Sam looks so _hopeful._

This isn’t how they’re supposed to go.

“Okay,” Sam says, and he lets Rafe go but Rafe still feels like he’s walking out on him.

 

 

He doesn’t have very many friends, not really. It’s hard to make friends when people are either incompetent or unreliable or condescending or all three. His parents love him and he loves them for the most part, but telling them anything is out of the question; he can already imagine how they’ll shake their heads and say, _Still having nightmares at_ your age _, really, Rafael?_

_So tell Sam,_ is his next, most natural reaction.

He thinks it in the middle of a meeting, and his hand stutters in the middle of writing a word when he conceptualizes how _easy_ it would be to ask Sam to get coffee from somewhere that isn’t the lunchroom for once. 

They could talk. It would be nothing groundbreaking; they’ve _been_ doing that. It’s how Rafe knows Sam is surprisingly funny and capable of talking about history for hours on end.

It shouldn’t be that easy.

He glances down at his paper, where he’s been pressing the pen so hard that ink has bled into the next two pages.

He tries to stop Sam before he leaves that day. Sam’s been acting a little strange lately, fidgeting and looking off into spaces with empty stares. 

Rafe looks at him once, noting that Sam won’t look back at him, and swallows. He wonders if it’s because he didn’t stay.

“Sorry,” Sam says, smiling in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes, “I gotta hurry. I’m, uh, supposed to meet someone.”

Rafe bites his lip. “Oh. Okay. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine. If it’s about work, just— uh, email me? I’ll take a look at it later.”

“…I will.”

He’s the one who lets Sam go this time. Later, he calls instead and gets sent to voicemail. He makes up something about the latest floor plans that Sam sent him for approval, and at the end, he tacks on, “I was thinking we could talk about it over lunch tomorrow. I know a shop that makes coffee better than either of us can.”

Maybe he ends the call too abruptly—he’s not sure how else to. He’s never left a message like that for anyone else before. 

Sam doesn’t call back within the night, which Rafe tells himself is _fine_ , because Sam owes him nothing; if anything, after that last night, it’s the other way around.

So he sleeps, and he dreams. He dreams the same dream of smoke and cruelty. Then he wakes up and barely makes it to the bathroom to upend an empty stomach.

Sam doesn’t come to work, and Rafe checks his phone once in a while for a call, a text. He doesn’t hear a word from Sam, but maybe— maybe the silence says something.

 

 

“You couldn’t keep depending on him,” he says out loud in the safety of his apartment. “You made it clear from the beginning that it wouldn’t go beyond just fucking.”

He slips off his shoes and places them inside the closet.

“This is what you wanted,” he reminds himself.

He undoes the strap of his watch and sets it down on the dresser. “Understand? So you have to fix this yourself.”

He pauses by a mirror. The lack of sleep is becoming evident in the shadows under his eyes and the pale tinge to his skin. He puts two hands to his face, pulls on the skin of his cheeks. “We have to do something about this,” he mutters, only thinking of the business meeting coming up and how much attention those things need. 

In his peripheral vision, something moves.

He whirls around.

“Who’s there?”

He thinks it’s a stupid thing to say, especially when he knows that no one could have forced their way past the three locks on the door without him hearing.

_You already know who I am, though, don’t you?_ the voice whispers.

Rafe closes his eyes. He opens them. He reaches for his glasses, slips them on—he only needs them for reading, but some part of him thinks they might help him see whoever has been whispering into his ear.

“I do,” he says evenly, resolutely, to the empty air. “And you finally have my attention. What the _hell_ do you want?”

Sam hasn’t spoken to him for days. The dreams have been relentless, but that’s not all that’s wrong; the guilt has sharpened where it’s stuck in his throat with the apology he knows he owes Sam.

_You don’t remember him._

“You know, I’m very surprised you haven’t concluded that _no I do not,_ after harassing me for weeks.”

The voice says nothing. The silence is eerie, but Rafe pushes on, refusing to let this _thing_ believe it has any power over him: “What are you?”

_Someone who knew you before._

“Who are you? And what do you mean, before?”

_Before._

The lack of an answer doesn’t surprise him in the least, and he resists the urge to bury his head in his hands. “Am I going crazy?” He thinks of his mother. He doesn’t want to be like his mother.

_I hope not._ The voice sounds amused for a turn. _That didn’t work out well last time._

“ _What_ last time? What’s the point of _stalking_ me if you’re just going to be vague on purpose?”

_I’ll explain eventually. For now, I need your help._

“I’m not doing _anything_ until you tell me what the hell’s going on!” He puts a hand on the top right drawer on instinct, then almost laughs. He keeps a gun in there, but what’s a gun going to do against a voice in his head?

_In every lifetime I meet you, you’re always so angry. You never change._

Rafe’s fingers curl around the handle. “Why don’t you show me who you are?”

_I can’t yet. I’m not strong enough._

“Is that what you need help with?”

_No, not exactly._

“Then _what_?”

_I will explain. Eventually. I promise. Right now, I’m running out of time, and I need to know that you will help me._

“So you’re asking me to trust someone or something I can’t see?”

_You shouldn’t worry about that. I’m harmless like this._ Here it sounds a little wistful. _If I could do everything myself, I would, but I can’t. That’s why I need you. Please._

Rafe glances around his room. There is no evidence to suggest that anyone is there with him, except perhaps the faint feeling of being watched. “All right,” he finds himself conceding for reasons he can’t quite explain. Part of it is the plea—it reminds him of the figure that calls out for his help in his dreams.

_Thank you._ Agreeing seems to temper the guilt in his stomach. Rafe hopes it’s a good sign, even though every sensible part of him screams he’s gotten himself into something dangerous. (And stupid. Very, very stupid.) _Your phone is going to ring. Answer it._

The sound of his cell phone vibrating on the dresser almost startles him into reaching for his gun after all. “Wait!” he calls out, mind spinning with questions, but he’s only met with silence.

Growling, he picks up the phone, catching a glimpse of the contact just before accepting the call. The name does nothing to lighten his mood. “Samuel,” he says when he answers.

Sam fumbles, and Rafe’s patience is already thin. He hangs up.

_Don’t hang up,_ the voice says.

“Don’t hang up,” Sam pleads when Rafe answers the second call.

_He’s been waiting outside for an hour. Ask him to meet you somewhere._

And then Sam says, “I’ve been seeing ghosts.”

Rafe freezes, feeling the anger drain away from him, replaced by curiosity. There’s also a hope that unfurls within him, quick and sudden as he wonders, _Has he been hearing voices too?He_ sees _it? I’m not alone?_

He’s telling Sam to come up before he can think about it, though the voice says nothing against it, and when Sam is finally there, Rafe sees that he hasn’t been doing too well either. He keeps fidgeting with an unlit cigarette and keeps sending Rafe too-long glances.

Rafe doesn’t need to be told to ask about the ghost; he does it himself. It’s when Sam describes what he’s been seeing that the voice whispers suddenly, _He’s here._

Rafe almost asks “Who’s here?” out loud, if not for Sam’s hand touching the side of his face. He blushes, turns away.

_We’re out of time._

_You said you would explain._

_Not now. The more time he spends alone with_ him _, the more danger he’s in._

_What_ danger _? Who is_ him _?_

_You have to take him somewhere else._

_Not until you explain!_

_We don’t have time. I’ll tell you everything as soon as you get him away. Please._

_Bullshit. Tell me or I w—_

 

 

He blinks, and he’s waking up next to Sam on the couch with a migraine. The television plays some movie that he can’t be bothered to name, its light outlining the distinct profile of Sam’s face, Sam, who—

—is turning to him with a smile that makes Rafe’s chest hurt. “Hey,” Sam says quietly. “You should probably move to your bed. I can’t imagine it’s too comfy here.”

_Here? Where is here?_ Rafe blinks again. Right, they’re at his penthouse, on the couch—Sam came over, Sam stayed, Sam’s been seeing ghosts—

“ ‘Sides, I should probably go home and pack for tomorrow.”

_Tomorrow?_ his sluggish mind asks.

How does his head feel so slow and muddy yet painfully _sharp_ at the same time?

“Rafe?” Sam’s fingers, warm, comb through his hair. “You all right?”

“Headache,” he mutters. _Tomorrow. Right. I told him to come with me, because I wanted to keep him safe… I wanted to… I wanted to._

“Do you want me to stay?”

_Didn’t I?_

The voice has nothing to say about this.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, pushing himself up to a sitting position. “It’s—” He frowns when he sees how dark it is outside. How long has he been sleeping? “—late.” He rubs his eyes none too gently, wincing when his head throbs. “I can’t believe you stayed. You didn’t have to.”

“You looked pretty comfortable using my arm as a pillow.” Sam smirks just a little, and Rafe feels a prickle of fondness. He pretends to push Sam’s face away.

“Well, I don’t need your arm any longer,” he says. Off-handedly, he notices his glasses sitting on the coffee table—when did he take them off? There’s a bowl of popcorn sitting there too. “So you should go home. And pack. For tomorrow.”

Now the details of the past few hours are beginning to come back: How Sam had looked afraid of saying yes, how Sam sat fidgeting until Rafe joined him, how Sam put his arm around Rafe’s shoulders when Rafe leaned against him, how Rafe let him—

“All right, all right, I’m going,” Sam laughs, standing to leave.

—yet why do those moments feel less like memories and more like images, flitting across his mind while he simply watches, idle—

 

 

Sam holds his hand throughout the car ride. Rafe, exhausted from the one-sided shouting match he had that morning, allows the contact, even grips Sam’s hand back. The contact feels like something they both need.

Through the rearview mirror he can see his driver’s eyes occasionally glance between them, how closely they’re sitting despite the spacious seats. Rafe meets his stare evenly each time, daring him to say a word. The driver doesn’t.

The car ride is mostly silent. Rafe finds that Sam has a habit of mumbling city signs out loud to himself, a detail that he carefully tucks away with the rest of the things he’s come to learn about Sam: That he has a younger brother and a mother that he calls at least once a week, that he picks at his nails when he’s stressed, that he likes his eggs burnt severely around the edges, that he isn’t picky with what he smokes but holds a penchant for Camel, that he clings to things in his sleep.

_Side effects_ , Rafe tells himself. _These things are side effects._ _Sleep with the same man for a month, and you’re bound to learn some things about him._

The thought makes him feel vile. _Is that all you think of him? Do you think that’s all he thinks of_ you _?_

This isn’t the voice. He hasn’t heard from it since he last told it to leave him alone. No, these thoughts are his own—which somehow makes the revelation worse.

_I haven’t given him any reason to._

_Haven’t I?_

He thinks of what the voice had confided to him that one morning. 

_He can’t love me. We spend most of our time working or fucking. He barely knows me._

_Loved_ , it had said. _Loved_ , past tense, _once_ loved—though if not now, then when? He’s certain that they’ve never met before.

_Haven’t you?_

Rafe’s head jerks to the side, eyes landing on the empty space next to him.

_Hello?_ he calls out tentatively.

There is no answer, and there’s no— no _feeling_ either, so maybe the voice listened for once and stayed back and he just hasn’t heard his own voice in his head for so long.

“Centralia,” Sam hums.

Rafe averts his attention back to Sam, who’s reading off of a sign that they’re quickly approaching. It’s safer to focus on him. “There’s been a mine fire burning under that town for half a century, did you know,” Rafe says lazily.

Sam turns interested eyes on him. “Half a century?”

Rafe nods. He only knows about this because he’s attended meetings in this state before and it’s useless trivia that entertains people. Of course, Sam looks genuinely interested in it. Rafe smiles slightly.

“What started it?” Sam asks, craning his neck to watch the sign as they drive past it.

“They set fire to a landfill without realizing there was a mine strip underneath. They couldn’t stop the fire, and it eventually got so bad that the state tried to force people to move out of the town, if the people weren’t already willing to leave themselves. There are still some people living there, but now it’s mostly known as a g—”

_Ghost town,_ he means. He thinks Sam knows that’s what he meant to say too, but neither of them offer it out loud.

“Huh,” Sam says. “Can’t imagine something burning for so long.”

“As long as there’s something for it to burn, it will keep burning, I guess.” Rafe shrugs against Sam’s side, and Sam squeezes his hand.

Rafe looks down where their hands rest on Sam’s thigh. He thinks he sees something between Sam’s fingers, but then he feels Sam turning, and he looks away before he’s caught staring.

“I guess,” Sam says quietly. A few seconds later, Rafe hears him shift to look through the window again.

He closes his eyes. _Stop thinking about it. You brought him with you so he can get away from_ his _ghost. Maybe you need to do the same for yourself._

That, obviously, is easier said than done.

 

 

“Here.” Rafe presses the key card into Sam’s hand as soon as Sam puts his bag down on the floor.

The room is one of the best that money can afford, though he would never admit that he spent hours fighting on the phone for a last-minute booking to make sure that Sam would only get the best. There’s a television and a mini fridge here, the bathroom has both a bathtub and shower, and the bed is more than large enough to fit a person. Gold-and-orange flowers line the wall, colors that help bathe the room in flax when the lights are on. Some O’Keefe piece hangs on the wall, framed in silver.

“What?” Sam is clearly confused, shooting multiple glances between Rafe and the card. “What’s this?”

“This is your room.” Rafe clears his throat and shifts his own bag to his other hand. Usually he lets the bellboys carry his things to his room, but he hasn’t been so keen on letting strangers too close to him or his things lately. “I’m right next door. We’re, um—” He stumbles over his words for some reason. “—the _rooms_ are connected. If you need me, I’m leaving my side unlocked, so you can come in anytime you need something.”

Sam looks to the door in question, then back at him with an expression that Rafe can’t quite read.

(No, he’s dealt with people long enough to be able to dissect every expression he comes across. In Sam’s, there’s a mixture of acceptance, anxiousness, and disappointment. He just _chooses_ not to read into it.)

Sam nods once, slowly. “Got it.” He takes a seat on the edge of the bed and reaches for his bag, unzipping it. Rafe stays where he stands for a more few seconds, uncertain.

_You brought him here so he wouldn’t be alone. How are you going to make sure he’s safe if he’s a room away?_

Rafe bites his lip. “Could we—” he begins, at the same time Sam says, “You didn’t—” He instinctively stops, though it doesn’t quite work because Sam stops as well. Their eyes meet—and Sam laughs. Rafe is surprised to find himself chuckling with him. “You first.”

“I was about to say that you didn’t have to get two rooms,” Sam says, shaking his head. “We’ve managed to fit in tighter spaces before, haven’t we? Save some money.”

“I just thought you’d want some privacy for a change.” _From your ghost._ “You know, from someone who’s spent about half of the month in your bed.”

“I’d hardly call you _unwelcome_.” 

“Still.” His fingers curl and uncurl by his side. He realizes dimly he wants to reach out to Sam, but Sam is busy taking out the laptop and the charger he’s brought, and Rafe doesn’t want to be a bother. Odd, since he’s never cared about inconveniencing other people before.

“Okay. Fair.” Sam gestures towards him. “Your turn.”

Rafe bites his lip. He had started a question, but he reworks it into something that’s safer: “We could leave the connecting doors open.” He pauses. “If you want.” Sam stops his unpacking to look at him, one eyebrow raised slightly. He looks like he’s overthinking, so Rafe says, trying to be helpful, “Don’t overthink it.”

“Sure,” Sam says. “We can do that.”

“You’re sure?”

Sam’s smiling. “I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t mean it,” he says smoothly, and Rafe should have seen that coming.

“ _Oh_ ,” Rafe says, “very clever, aren’t you?”

Sam reaches for him, and they’re close enough that Sam can put a hand on his hip and tug him two steps closer. “I try.” He sounds smug, and Rafe smiles, bemused, down at him. He can feel some of the tension leaving his system, a feat that Sam accomplishes without trying at all.

“I don’t know why I put up with you,” he says, even though sometimes he wonders why it isn’t Sam asking that question.

“Because of my witty quips and steady hands?”

He hums, threading his fingers through Sam’s hair and watching the way Sam closes his eyes and leans into the touch. “You do make nice blueprints,” he relents.

Sam peers an eye open. “Blueprints. _That’s_ what you’re going to comment on? Really?”

“I don’t know what else I can possibly comment on,” Rafe snips, and for that, Sam slides his hand higher and digs his fingers into Rafe’s waist. It tears a laugh out of him, loud and unexpected, and he sees Sam’s eyes positively light up at the sound. “Sam, no, _don’t_ — Oh _fuck_ you—” He reaches blindly for Sam’s shoulder and tries to push him away, but Sam holds fast and Rafe only succeeds in toppling both of them back onto the bed in a mess of laughter and tangled limbs.

The change in position at least knocks Sam’s hands away, and Rafe takes the opportunity to climb over him and pin his wrists down to the bed. Sam grins up at him, unrepentant. “You,” Rafe enunciates, mindful of the strands of his own hair coming loose, “are never doing that again.”

“You can’t hold me down forever.”

“Oh, _can’t_ I, now.”

“Is that a challenge I hear?”

Rafe leans down close. “Only if you’re not backing down from it.”

“All right, you got it. We’ll put it to the test next time— _Next time_ , okay. Give me my hands back.”

Feeling generous, Rafe lets go of one of his wrists. Almost immediately, he feels Sam’s fingers brush against the side of his face, tucking a strand of hair away.

_And it has blood, here_ , he remembers Sam saying.

The memory has him sitting back, away from Sam’s touch and subsequently freeing Sam’s other hand. He breathes in. _Stop. Stop thinking about it._ He breathes out. “I don’t want to know how you knew about that,” he says pointedly, tilting his head at Sam.

“You don’t remember?”

Rafe arches an eyebrow.

“Ah, ‘course, you’re not the one who almost lost your teeth.” Sam chuckles. “It was one of the nights back at my place—I kissed your stomach and you kneed me in the face.”

Rafe winces at the memory. “Well, it didn’t kill you.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.” Sam’s rubbing idle little circles into his thighs. When Rafe looks down at him, he is partially terrified by the relaxed, _fond_ expression on Sam’s face. The rest of him likes being looked at like that—and that terrifies him too.

“Sam,” he says cautiously, feeling like they’ve skirted around the subject long enough, “can you tell me more about your g—”

The shrill ringing of his phone surprises him.

He grunts in frustration, taking it out from his back pocket and cutting off the sound. “Shit.”

Sam’s hands leave his hips as Sam props himself up on both elbows to peer at the phone. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. That’s just my reminder that I have a meeting.” With a sigh, he hauls himself off of the bed and back on his feet, straightening out his clothes. “I should get ready. You can—” He breaks off to look around, feeling conscious about leaving Sam alone.

Sam shoots him another smile, although this one seems more controlled than the others. “Don’t worry about it. I was planning to call Nathan away, let him know I haven’t been mugged or murdered yet.” Rafe makes a face at the imagery, and Sam chuckles. “I’ll be okay on my own.”

_Will you?_

He’s wondering if he shouldn’t have told the voice to stay behind. Its warning about a _danger_ has worried Rafe more than he’d like to admit, and if it’s not here, it can’t explain like it promised.

_It can wait. It said Sam will be safe if I got him away, and if I got_ it _to stay behind, then maybe whatever’s after Sam was left behind too. There’s time._ Yes. _There’s time to think of something._

“Rafe?”

Rafe shakes the thoughts away. “I’m going to go get ready,” he tells Sam, who sits up completely to watch him leave.

“Are we leaving the doors open starting now?”

Rafe rolls his eyes. 

He leaves the doors open.

 

 

Sam calls him about half an hour later while he’s waiting for the elevator to arrive. “Sam,” he greets. “Don’t tell me you’ve already broken something.”

“Nah. I just forgot to ask if you wanna grab breakfast together tomorrow?” Sam asks, casual, like it isn’t a question that makes Rafe swallow nervously.

“As long as we eat something not completely covered in grease,” Rafe replies, taking pride in how neutral he sounds.

“I was thinking somewhere with coffee.” A pause. The elevator rings, the doors open, and Sam’s voice picks up again as Rafe steps inside. “I looked up some places nearby, and I think I found one that can make better coffee than either of us can. It’s to— Ah, to make up for that week-long radio silence from me.”

Rafe instantly remembers that message he had sent and is grateful that the other person in the elevator is looking down so that they don’t see him fluster. “So you _did_ get the call.”

“Yeah, and I put off answering it because I’m an idiot, and I still feel shitty about it so—let me make it up to you?”

Rafe presses the button for the ground floor before placing himself in one of the back corners of the elevator, where he’s less likely to be seen reacting to anything else Sam says. “All right, since you insist.”

“Great.”

“Mhm.”

“I’m going to stop bothering you now.”

“Sam,” he says before Sam can hang up. In his peripheral vision, he sees the other person in the elevator lift their head slightly, and he lowers his voice in case it might be someone who recognizes him. “Was it so hard to ask me that in person?”

“I forgot, okay,” Sam says through some rustling on his end. “Plus, I didn’t know how late you’d be coming back, and I didn’t want to be the asshole who wakes you up to ask you on a date, you know?”

Rafe grasps for the handrail a little too tightly. “What?”

“What?” Sam says immediately. “Ah, I should probably let you focus now. See you later—or tomorrow! Bye.”

The call ends.

Rafe stares dumbly down at his phone.

The elevator rings and the doors open. He walks out in a bit of a daze, then stops and looks back, wondering if the other man might have overheard any part of that. The elevator doors are sliding shut, but he sees that it’s empty right before it closes. 

The man must have gotten out already. If he did so without raising any questions, he’s likely no one to worry about.

Rafe exhales, clenching and unclenching his fists. The more comfortable he becomes talking to Sam, the more he has to remind himself hat he can’t place more than a grain of trust in anyone else.

_Get through this meeting, and tomorrow you can take a break._

It’s motivation enough.

 

 

He’s exhausted and plagued by a raging headache by the time he returns to his hotel room, and he’s glad that Sam had asked earlier because he feels ready to throw his fist against the next mouth that talks to him.

His room is dark when he enters except for a light coming from the door connecting his and Sam’s room together. He sheds his shoes and his shirt as he walks towards it, wondering if Samis awake. He checks as he undoes his belt; no, Sam’s asleep, propped up by some pillows against the headboard with an open book splayed across his stomach. He had left the light on.

Rafe gives a short, quiet laugh and moves away from the door to his own bed. He thinks he pops a button from how impatiently he tugs his pants off, but getting into something less restricting takes priority over some damn button. 

He lays out his clothes over the back of an armchair so that they won’t wrinkle, changes into looser clothes, and gets into bed. He sleeps.

 

 

He dreams.

_Please. You can have me, you’ve_ got _me, just help him._

Not this again, he thinks. I don’t want this. I left this behind. I don’t want this.

The second voice answers, faithful to its script, _Why should I, when I have you right where I want you?_

_Help him_ , the voice moans. The figure ripples with it. _Please help him._

_No._

_Rafe._

_You really don’t remember, do you?_

He never thought it possible for things to suddenly, wholly become quiet. The creaking stops. The burning smell fades. The figure stops moving.

He realizes that the second voice was addressing _him_. 

“No,” he says out loud. His voice sounds surreal here and not entirely his own, and he wonders if he’s always been able to speak. “You keep talking like I’m supposed to know why all of _this_ is suddenly happening. I don’t.”

He looks around, surprised to find that he can move freely. He takes a step experimentally, and this time he’s _certain_ that he actually moves closer to the figure.

_Do you want me to remind you?_

He bites his lip. “Yes.”

With the affirmative, the scene resumes. He hears the crackling of fire, smells burning wood, and hears the voice beg, _If I ever meant anything to you, get him out, or let_ me _help him, damn it._

_Go ahead_ , the second voice tells him. _Help him._

“How?” Rafe asks aloud, but his body is already moving like it knows what to do. sHe closes the distance between him and the figure and kneels beside it, reaching for what seems to be an arm. He touches something cold.

In an instant, everything changes: Color floods his surroundings, painting swaths of brown and bright yellow and red to form a setting of a burning room. Gold litters the room, and he can’t tell if the things floating in the air are cinders or coins falling from the heavy bags of gold dangling from the ceiling. Everything is suddenly so much realer, like the smoke that becomes twice as thick and gets caught in his throat. He coughs roughly, almost falling back in surprise, but manages to catch himself on a wooden beam. It feels splintered, warm from the heat of the fires, and _real_.

_Do you remember this?_

The shape has transformed too, has filled in with other colors—patches of flesh tone, a neck of black birds and purpling bruises, a set of dark, dead eyes.

“Sam,” he chokes out, recognizing the face immediately. He turns away almost violently, stomach heaving at the sight of Sam crushed under that beam, so still and _lifeless_.

_Do you remember now?_

“No.” His own voice is beginning to sound unfamiliar, touched by hysteria. “What the hell is this?”

_He betrayed you. You were giving him what he deserved—and he took even_ that _away from you._

And then, against his will, he draws to his knees and crawls over to the body. His hands reach for Sam’s neck—no, the _figure_ ’s neck, this isn’t real, it’s just a dream—and his fingers fit neatly over the purple bruises there.

_This is how it should have been,_ the voice hisses. 

His fingers squeeze, and suddenly Sam is alive beneath him, eyes widening and lips parting desperately for air.

_You should have taken him with you. Instead, they left you behind. They left you. He left you._

“Stop,” he gasps. “ _Stop it,_ stop, you’re killing him. _Sam._ ”

_Remember this. This was meant to be yours. You were_ robbed _of it._ Sam goes still. _Remember this when I return it to you._

 

 

He wakes up weeping in the dark.

Sam is standing at the side of his bed, illuminated by the moonlight. “Rafe,” he murmurs.

“I’m sorry,” Rafe manages between the sobs racking his chest. He pushes himself up to sit, hands shaking so badly that he drops his glasses as soon as he grabs them from the night stand. “Oh, _God_ , I’m so sorry.”

“Hey.” Sam lays a hand on his forehead, and Rafe doesn’t feel the touch at all. “It’s okay. Rafe? It’s okay. It was my fault. I would have been angry too.”

“Wh— What?” Rafe looks up at him, at the thin sliver of moonlight that outlines Sam’s figure. It must be the lighting that makes him look so pale.

“You had every right to tell me not to come. But I— You have to understand. I _had_ to make sure you got him out of there, and I _have_ to be here so I can explain.”

“I don’t understand,” Rafe whispers, even as he feels himself being eased back down against the pillows. He feels so _drained_. “Sam. I don’t understand.”

“You will,” Sam promises.

There are birds on his neck, Rafe thinks deliriously, but Sam gently runs his fingertips over his eyelids until they’re weighing shut and Rafe sees nothing else.

“I want to finally show you something.”

No more, Rafe thinks to the darkness. Please, no more.

 

 

He’s in the burning room again, but it’s different. It’s no longer just him and Sam; there are two men fighting, each one with a glinting sword in their hand.

_What is this?_

“That’s good,” one of them snarls, driving the other to the floor in a single, brutal motion. “Don’t hand it to me. I’ve had _everything_ handed to me—on a _goddamn_ —silver _platter_ —”

There’s something else, though—a movement off to the side that catches his attention. Rafe dares to move there, narrowly avoiding the fighting, and he discovers exactly was he was afraid of: Sam, bloodied and bruised, still pinned under a beam. _But at least he’s alive._ Yes, Sam’s eyes are wide and focused on the other men.

“Sam,” he says thickly, kneeling by him the way he did before. The sounds of clashing metal urges him to move faster, fingers hooking under the beam and trying in vain to lift. “Sam. We have— I have to get you out of there. Help me lift this.” He’s not sure what he can _do_ , but maybe this is a second chance of some sort, a way for him to save Sam instead of—

But Sam’s gaze is fixated on the fight behind them.

“You want the treasure, Rafe?”

Rafe freezes at the sound of his name. The sounds of fighting have stopped, and slowly, he turns.

He doesn’t recognize the person on the floor, but he does recognize the one still standing, despite the cuts and the blood smeared on his face in a parody of a lover’s caress. 

_That’s me._

“It’s all yours,” says the man on the floor.

What happens next happens too fast; Rafe flinches as soon as something heavy snaps from the ceiling, and that flinch is all it takes for him to miss the impact. In one moment, the other _him_ is standing there; in the next, he has been obliterated, replaced by a gleaming pile of gold.

There is something sobering about watching himself die. 

Numb, he doesn’t fully register the other man scrambling over to Sam and passing through him in the process, as if he isn’t there at all.

_Am I?_ He can’t stop staring at the pile, the fingers of a limp hand he can see among the wreckage. The rest of the room is falling apart around them, but the sounds are fading into background noise until he can’t hear even his own breathing.

He watches the other man free Sam by flooding the room with water. He watches them disappear together—presumably escaping.

_They left you_ , a voice mourns in the back of his mind. _He left you._

The floor underneath him buckles with everything else, and then it’s all crashing down, down, down—

 

 

He wakes up in a bed with daylight streaming in through the windows. It immediately feels wrong—the windows are supposed to be on his right, not on his left, and the painting is Hokusai instead of O’Keefe.

“Oh, you’re awake,” comes a voice, surprised but jovial.

He blinks sleep from his eyes, focusing on the figure who comes walking through the doorway across the bed.

_Sam._

Relief floods through him so suddenly that his eyes sting. “Sam,” he rasps.

“Rafe?” Sam seems to understand what he wants and makes his way over, sitting on the side of the bed. Rafe immediately reaches for him, winding his arms around Sam and _breathing_. Sam smells like smoke—but of nicotine, not of burning rooms. “It’s okay, hey. I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’m here.”

He’s aware of Sam’s hand steadying him at the small of his back, a gesture that somehow makes his eyes sting even more. “Not your sweetheart,” he says shakily, squeezing his eyes shut and burying his face into Sam’s neck.

“Another bad dream?” Sam murmurs into his hair.

“You could say that.” He can’t recall ever telling Sam about his nightmares before, but he’s exhausted despite just waking up. He must have.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe.” He pulls away slightly, hands still shaking where they grip at Sam’s arms. “Yes. But later. I— I want to talk about your ghost, first. I’m sorry. Please?”

Sam visibly stiffens, and Rafe feels his stomach twist. He hates that he promised Sam a break and yet here he is, barely two days later, dredging up the very thing they were trying to leave behind, but it feels imperative that they do now. 

_Is that the danger the voice warned me about? Sam,_ dying _?_

“Okay. Yeah, we can do that.” Sam cups the side of his face then, and Rafe closes his eyes, trying not to remember _blood smeared on his face in a parody of a—_ “But first, we get you breakfast. You’re kind of worrying me.” Sam laughs, a short and awkward sound that eventually tapers off as he studies Rafe with a serious expression. “Deal?”

Rafe doesn’t feel like he can eat anything without vomiting it all back up, but he needs to _talk_. “Deal,” he mumbles.

“Good.”

With that said, Sam stands up and stretches a hand towards him. Rafe takes it, grateful for the way Sam holds onto his hand long afterwards like an anchor to this reality.

He kisses Sam twice before they leave, once on the lips and once on the side of his neck where there are no birds, and Sam seems to understand that he needs to do it and doesn’t ask. Without a word, he tugs Rafe out of the hotel room and into the hallway, where it’s empty and quiet. Rafe starts to breathe a little better when he sees that they’re alone for the time being. They aren’t.


End file.
